The 2001 Theodore Sturgeon Award for Best Short Story was won by “The Chief Designer,” by Andy Duncan.
The 2001 Philip K. Dick Memorial Award went to Ship of Fools, by Richard Paul Russo.
The 2001 Arthur C. Clarke award was won by Bold as Love, by Gwyneth Jones.
The 2001 James Tiptree, Jr. Memorial Award was won by The Kappa Child, by Hiromi Goto.
Death struck the SF field heavily once again this year. Dead in 2002 or early 2003 were: DAMON KNIGHT, 79, author, editor, critic, anthologist, one of the most influential figures in the history of modern science fiction, editor of the long-running ORBIT anthology series, one of the founders of the Science Fiction Writers of America, author of dozens of classic SF stories such as “The Country of the Kind,” “Stranger Station,” “Dio,” “The Earth Quarter,” “Rule Golden,” “Mary,” and “To Serve Man,” as well as many novels such as The Man in the Tree, Why Do Birds?, and Humptey Dumptey: An Oval, a mentor and a friend to me ever since I entered this field, and an inspiration to generations of new writers; R. A. LAFFERTY, 87, eclectic and utterly individual writer, author of some of the freshest and funniest short stories ever written, such as “Narrow Valley,” “Thus We Frustrate Charlemange,” “Slow Tuesday Night,” “Hog-Belly Honey,” “The Hole on the Corner,” and many others, as well as quirky and challenging novels such as The Reefs of Earth, Past Master, Okla Hannali, The Fall of Rome, and The Devil is Dead, posthumous winner of the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award; CHARLES SHEFFIELD, 67, scientist and Hugo-winning writer, author of The Web Between the Worlds, My Brother’s Keeper, Summertide, Transcendence, Cold as Ice, The Mind Pool, and many others, as well as much first-rate short fiction in both the SF and mystery fields, a personal friend; GEORGE ALEC EFFINGER, 55, critically acclaimed and Hugo-winning author of When Gravity Fails, A Fire in the Sun, The Exile Kiss, What Entropy Means to Me, The Nick of Time, The Wolves of Memory, and others, as well as dozens of short stories such as “Two Sadnesses,” “Schrodinger’s Kitten,” “Put Your Hands Together,” “Afternoon Under Glass,” “Everything but Honor,” “Naked to the Invisible Eye,” and many others, a personal friend for more than thirty years; JOHN MIDDLETON MURRY, Jr., 75, British writer who, as RICHARD COWPER, wrote such acclaimed SF novels as The Road to Corlay, A Dream of Kinship, A Tapestry of Time, and The Twilight of Briareus, and short fiction such as “Piper at the Gates of Dawn,” “The Custodians,” and “Out There Where the Big Ships Go”; ROBERT L. FORWARD, 70, scientist and writer, author of Dragon’s Egg, Starquake, The Flight of the Dragonfly, and other novels; LLOYD BIGGLE, Jr., 79, writer and musicologist, author of All the Colors of Darkness, The World Menders, The Angry Espers, The Still, Small Voice of Trumpets, and other novels and stories; CHERRY WILDER, 71, New Zealand-born author of The Luck of Brins Five, Second Nature, The Summer’s King, and other novels, as well as a large amount of eloquent short fiction; LAWRENCE M. JENIFER, 69, SF author whose work appeared in Astounding/Analog over the course of several decades, author of the popular “Knave” series, and of novels including Survivor, Knave in Hand, Knave in the Game, and others; HENRY SLEZAR, 74, SF and mystery writer, and prolific writer of television screenplays; JERRY SOHL, 88, SF novelist and television scriptwriter, author of Costigan’s Needle and Point Ultimate; JOHN R. PIERCE, 92, author, electrical engineer, and acoustics expert; KATHLEEN M. MASSIE-FERCH, 47, author, editor, anthologist, and scientist; MARY SCOTT, 54, British author; THOMAS E. FULLER, 54, SF writer and dramatist; DAVE VAN ARNAM, SF writer and fan; STEPHEN JAY GOULD, 60, biologist and evolutionary theorist whose controversial theory of “punctured evolution” inspired many SF writers, as well as one of the most popular “science popularizers” since Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov, and whose long-running columns in Natural History magazine were collected into many books such as The Panda’s Thumb; VIRGINIA KIDD, 81, one of the last of the Futurians, writer, anthologist, and for more than forty years one of the leading literary agents in science fiction, a longtime friend and colleague; LESLIE FIEDLER, 85, respected literary critic who occasionally slummed in the SF world, author of a biography of Olaf Stapledon and of the “historical-critical” anthology of science fiction, In Dreams Awake; RON WALOTSKY, 58, one of the leading SF cover artists and illustrators, whose work was recently collected in Inner Visions: The Art of Ron Walotsky, a friend; CHUCK JONES, 89, the mastermind behind decades of “Looney Tunes” cartoons, including the Roadrunner series, and also of the-far superior to the later live-action remake-original animated version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas; BILL PEET, 87, artist, children’s book author, and part of the animation team that created many of the most classic Disney animated features; RICHARD HARRIS, 72, actor probably best known to the genre audience for his role as Professor Dumbledore in the two “Harry Potter” movies; ROD STEIGER, 77, actor, probably best known to genre audiences for his role in the film version of Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man; JONATHAN HARRIS, 87, actor, probably best known to the genre audience for his role as the villainous but loveable Dr. Smith in the old television series Lost in Space; DONALD FRANSON, 85, writer and fan, coeditor (with Howard DeVore) of the invaluable reference source, A History of the Hugo, Nebula, and International Fantasy Award; BETSY CURTIS, 84, writer, fan, costumer; JON GUSTAFSON, 56, writer, editor, illustrator, longtime fan; WYNNE WHITEFORD, 87, Australian SF author and fan; WILLIAM SARJEANT, 66, author, geologist, and paleontologist; BRUCE PELZ, 65, longtime fan and convention organizer, chairman of the 1972 Worldcon; HARRY NADLER, 61, longtime British fan and film enthusiast; VIRGINIA HEINLEIN, 86, widow of SF writer Robert A. Heinlein, and the model for many of the female characters in his books; JOAN HARRISON, 72, wife of SF author Harry Harrison; JOAN BENFORD, 62, wife of SF writer Gregory Benford; DR. CHARLES NORTH, 62, partner of SF writer Liz Williams; DREW CHRISTIAN STAFANSON, 39, partner of SF writer M. Shayne Bell; MARY GUNN, 81, mother of SF writer and editor Eileen Gunn; and DEE L. FROST, 81, father of SF writer Gregory Frost.